


To Whom it May Concern

by Shift7



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bickering, Gen, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shift7/pseuds/Shift7
Summary: “Ah, Lord Beelzebub I don’t…" Dagon sputtered scuttering up next to them, "Fraternizing with Angels-- Archangels."“Fraternizing izz a strong word.”





	To Whom it May Concern

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'd and I'm kinda just figuring them out, apologies for any mistakezz.

They looked down again at the piece of paper in their hands. Realistically, it was likely to be a trap. 

“He’s definitely going to try to smite you.” Dagon rasped, for a third time, beginning to sound like a cracked record.

Beelzebub pondered this again, “Angelzz don’t lie. Thizz is explicitly asking for a meeting on peaceful termzz.”

“Ah yes but--but they’ll twist the truth to suit them really backwards like. It’s just fancy, twisty turny lying. You can’t trust them.”

“Fanzzy lying…” that just reminded them of the tendencies of a certain snake that was entirely banned from all lines of thought and conversation. They frowned. 

There was strategy in it, Beelzebub mused, reading the memo again before folding it and putting it in their pants pocket. Taking out a key leader in the opposition would have that bit of _oomph_ to boost morale back to at least dealable levels and stop some of the violent unrest. And if Heaven was in any comparable state to Hell was after that absolute fiasco on Earth, Beelzebub could see them resorting to an obvious, straightforward tactic like this. Demons fought and killed each other constantly. Maybe Heaven was experiencing some of the same, and ill equipped to handle it.

“I think you’re giving them too much credit, Dagon. In my expeirencezz angelzz are quite stupid,” Beelzebub said with finality, making up their mind and beginning to walk down a long hallway towards the Gates. ”Itzz worth investigating if only just to see how stupid.”

“Ah, Lord Beelzebub I don’t…" Dagon sputtered, scuttering up next to them, "Fraternizing with Angels-- _Arch_ angels."

“Fraternizing izz a strong word.”

“Wouldn’t you be afraid what happened to Cr--The Traitor could happen again?”

Beelzebub stopped abruptly and looked Dagon in the eyes with a fury that implied the other demon would be doing the most tedious paperwork in the deepest pits of hell for a century at least and spat, “Azz _if_ I would _ever_ be afraid of a stupid Angel, ezzpecially not _him_!"

  


He tapped his fingers on his marble desk and stared at the piece of paper resting on top of it. Gabriel had been staring at it for a time. Time was irrelevant now that they weren’t ticking the clock to doomsday down anymore, so there wasn’t a good way to tell how much time he had been starting at this memo, but it was definitely longer than some.

It seemed too simple. And the timing was too convenient. It was likely a trap.

Heaven was in chaos. Angels were passive aggressively puttering around instead of doing their work, unanswered prayers were piling up, and everything was becoming more and more unorganized. It made his head hurt so he did his best not to think too hard about it.

When he was in the middle of his staring, Sandalphon walked into his office carrying a large stack of manilla folders.

“Ah, Gabriel. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been told I need to bring these to you for approval. I know this isn't your usual, but with all the cleanup efforts--”

Gabriel snapped back to reality. “Ah yes, Sandalphon. Thank you, I’ll get to these shortly.” he pushed the paper aside and took the stack of folders that was handed to him.  
  
“What have you got there then?" The other angel inquired, gesturing to the document.

"Memo. It came from Hell.” 

Sandalphon raised an eyebrow, “Hell doesn't usually send memos as far as I recall.” 

“They sometimes send fake memos, but this is the first time they’ve sent a real one.”

“Interesting... what do they want?”

“A meeting. On Earth.” Gabriel held out the piece of paper, offering it to him.

“A meeting? Earth??” Sandalphon gawked, grabbing it and reading it over. “Surely you can’t.”

Gabriel frowned at that. No one told him what he could and could not do, especially his subordinates. 

"Why not? What's the worst a demon can do, truly? I'm an Angel, an _Arch_ angel." he said with a practiced air of nonchalance.

"And this memo came from one of The Seven Princes of Hell.” Sandalphon retorted scanning the paper again, “Could be dangerous, they’re always up to something vile. Could even develop into another _situation.”_ he handed the memo back with a shake of his head, “Angels and demons meeting on peaceful terms is still such a sensitive topic. I mean just look at that whole _thing_ with Azir--"

Gabriel cut him off immediately with a sparkling smile that did nothing to hide the rage behind it, "Now, now, we have a rule remember. No one says the A-word anymore. It was decreed. By me in fact! I never, EVER want to hear it ever again."

Sandalphon shut up immediately contorted his face into a constipated look.

“I'm going. I’ll do this work later.” Gabriel folded up the memo and put it in his breast pocket. "If angels start taking a lax approach against demons and their influences, well...Heaven is in a far worse state after that mess on Earth than I thought."

  


Beelzebub opened the door to the address listed. Immediately they wished they hadn’t. It was a fancy restaurant and felt like exactly the kind of place Gabriel would pick. It reeked of a bastardized French Baroque aesthetic, complete with stupid cherub adornments poping out of places they absolutely didn’t need to be. Beelzebub felt as if all their tiny fat baby eyes were watching them no matter where they stood... It was unnerving. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to head back to Hell and abandon this idea all together.

Turning around, Beelzebub and nearly crashed face to chest into a tall broad figure. They recovered and took a quick step backwards avoiding collision. 

“Ah,” they said and attempted to hide their embarrassing, off-guarded clumsiness while regaining their footing, “You.”

“Hello.” Gabriel flashed a friendly smile. “What were the chances of meeting you here.”

“That wazz literally the only reason for the two of us to be in this place, from my understanding.” Beelzebub deadpanned back, tilting their head upwards to look at him. They hated this height difference.

“You look, uh,” He looked them up and down, “...Nice? I see you left your fly hat at home.” He was glad of that actually. The hat made it hard to look at them without getting distracted. He was never able to fully understand Hell’s uniform policies.

Beelzebub narrowed their eyes, “Appearancezz are irrelevant.”

Gabriel did, Beezelbub noted, look a little more ethereal than usual. Something about his eyes...? He had clearly made an effort to fluff himself up for this meeting which was honestly more annoying than anything. Was he expecting them to be impressed?

“That’s a funny sentiment coming from someone who wears superfluous medals on their jacket.” Gabriel poked one of the pins on their collar, curiously.

“Do not touch me--” They swatted his hand away. Gabriel looked like he could not understand how he had done anything wrong. (He couldn’t.) The audacity.  
“Idiot, I’ll have you know thezze are anything but superfluouzzzzz” they buzzed back louder than they would have liked and, letting annoyance get the better of them momentarily, they snapped back, “How many timezz have you lead a succezzful revolt againzzt the devil?”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

"A revolt? About what?"

They looked Gabriel in his stupid, fancy eyes, "Equal pay."

"And you _won_?" The other eyebrow raised up to join the first.

"Azz much azz you can against the literal king of Hell." Beelzebub crossed their arms, "Azz it turns out demonzz don't actually _get_ paid, so the entire effort was moot at itzz core. When you go to collect your allotmentzz you get sent to queue which sendzz you to another sezzion of filling out uselezz paperwork which when completed sendzz you to another queue and so on and so forth until you forget what you were even there for and start the procezz all over again."

"That sounds just awful."

"Oh, it izz. And convoluted enough you’d never notice unlezz you look. It'zz a perfectly inefficient system."

“Fascinating.” he said with what might be akin to interest, Beelzebub couldn’t actually tell but it still had that vague feeling of mockery underneath. They made a mental note of that.

"It got me a promotion even if I had to do all the resulting paperwork myself. So basically what I'm saying,” They stood up straight, rising to about, but not quite, Gabriel’s shoulder height, “Izz do not disrespect me, _Archangel_ . Corporeal formzz are irrelevant and represent nothing, least of all power and threat." Beelzebub jabbed him in his tie with one of their fingers, manifesting grime so that it would leave a nasty stain. “I don’t _care_ if you think I look ‘nice’ or whatever.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment before he smiled that very fake smile of his and looked down on them, “Apologies, Lord of Hell. I didn’t mean to offend.” He miracled the grime away. “...Or is it Prince of Hell? ...Lord Prince of Hell?”

They were sure he was doing this on purpose. (He was.) It would be so easy to reach up and ring his arrogant, stupid angelic neck. 

But this was really no place for an actual altercation. Technically, Beelzebub was on record as doing perimeter evaluations because of the riots in Hell. Thinking about having to explain, in documented detail, the meeting of, subsequent fight, and absolute complete defeat of an Archangel gave them a bigger headache than Gabriel was currently giving them. It would take weeks.

They stepped back,smoothed their jacket down, and looked away. “Letzz just… Letzz just get thizz over with.”

“Gladly.” Gabriel was still smiling. He stepped past them and walked into the heart of the restaurant, past the hostess stand. Beelzebub glanced once more at the door before following, reluctantly.

Gabriel proceeded to give them an air of inconspicuousness, no one even spared them a glance as they maneuvered through the restaurant, and led them to a moderately secluded booth near the side of the establishment. Even if it was out of the way, it still had a good view of the city. Gabriel thought it was picturesque.

He pulled out a chair and then walked to the other side of the table and sat himself down. Beelzebub looked at the chair hesitantly before sitting down and scooting it in.

“Do you want something to eat?” Gabriel asked, grabbing a menu and opening it up on the table in front of him.

“I thought Angelzz didn’t eat.” 

“Strictly. No, not usually, It’s not considered very angelic.” Gabriel said, looking very satisfied with himself, before continuing, “But demons do, if I recall correctly. And it would really complete the ‘dinner meeting’ aesthetic.” He finger quoted that last part.

Beelzebub frowned. Gabriel actually had this fact correct. Gluttony, being one of the seven sins, was something demons were welcome and encouraged to partake in, even if they didn’t strictly need to eat. Beelzebub, admittedly, loved to eat, but rarely got the chance. The food in Hell was dreadful on a good day and completely unrecognizable as anything remotely edible on a bad one. The cafeteria workers that ended up there didn’t get the luxury of a career change after death.

“Alright.” They conceded grabbing their own menu, “I will have something.”

“Perfect, we can get this whole thing started, workshopped, and concluded.” Gabriel snapped his fingers and immediately a plate of food popped into existence before Beelzebub. It contained a large cut of steak with seasoned grilled vegetables on the side garnished with greens. It looked perfect. He was very proud of it.

“Are you ever not insufferable.” they groaned eyeing the plate suspiciously while putting their own menu down.

“I’m polite.” Gabriel retorted; that perfect, absolutely fake smile still intact. “I remember reading that flies enjoy any kind of food so this seemed like it would be to your liking.”

“Insufferable politenezzzzzzz.” They buzzed rolling their eyes before grabbing a knife to stab the miracled steak in front of them. Red meat juices squirted out of it with a _squelch_ , dirtying the surrounding table cloth. It was Gabriel’s turn to frown at that.

“Listen, I didn’t come here to get insulted.”

“That’zz all you’ve been doing to me since we arrived.”

“I thought I was being quite nice.”

“Quite? _Nice_ ?" Beelzebub scoffed, "Your entire air is that of superiority. It’s annoying _and_ assumptive. You didn’t even _ask_ what _I_ wanted to eat. You just miracled something up. How am I to know it’s not laced with Holy Water or something.” 

At that Gabriel looked, and felt, genuinely offended. “We in Heaven would never use such underhanded tactics. That’s more of a _your side_ thing.”

They sighed and looked very tired, “I’ve come to a conclusion. There izz no way thizz meeting will be fruitful.”

"Oh, did you want fruit? I sort of figured this would be more of a ‘dinner’ thing.” Gabriel said, waving his hand to miracled up a very fine fruit parfait, right next to the steak.

“Do you _ever_ listen to anyone other than yourself, Satan in Hell!” Beelzebub grabbed the parfait and threw it at him but Gabriel vanished it before it even got close.

“Thinking there might be some common ground with you wazz foolish.” They grimaced and sunk back into their chair, “I’m just damning myself to more backlog by even _being_ here. You’re literally _wasting_ my time. I bet you don’t even _do_ your own work.” 

Gabriel got defensive at that, “I have my own astronomically large work pile, thank you. It’s not like the failed Apocalypse _only_ affected your side, you know. We haven’t been able to do anything in a timely fashion for weeks! It’s a huge damper on morale which was already low from befo--”

Gabriel stopped himself with a cough, then continued, “If I’m being completely honest, Heaven is sort of a disaster at the moment. Having an excuse to step out was a God send.”

Beelzebub pursed their lips and looked down at the plate of food in front of them before stabbing the meat again, “Never truzzt me to be _completely_ honest, but Hell izz itzz own seriezz of problemzz...”

This admission of their mutual exasperations trailed into an awkward silence. The two members of the opposing upper managements simply stared down at the table apprehensively, unsure of exactly how to continue.

"So--" they both said in unison before abruptly stopping and looking up to meet the other’s eyes. Gabriel’s sparkled, trying to illicit a favorable reaction. Beelzebub’s darkened, not falling for it.

Gabriel gave up his own ruse, "Look let's cut to the chase, this whole situation. This whole Armageddon that didn't-- This kind of thing can not happen again."

Beelzebub tilted their head to the side, curious about Gabriel’s sudden straightforwardness, "On thizz we agree."

"We both suffered oversight, immense, terrible oversight.” He was talking faster now. “Which led to previously aforementioned situations. I think we should both be big enough to admit that.”

They buzzed apprehensively.

“What if we just--Oh Heaven I can’t believe I’m about to say this--What if we,” Gabriel breathed in and steepled his fingers. “What if we worked together to prevent something like this from happening again. That’s...That’s at least in the general area of what you wanted to discuss, right?”

Beelzebub looked at him for a few beats. “Perhapzzzzz it wazzzz… We could mutually benefit from a loose alliance of sortzz. But only in termzz of major scenario prevention.”

Gabriel looked relieved to have breached the heart of the matter. “Finally, thank you. See, reasonable demons can exist.”

“...I’m going to let that slide.” Beelzebub huffed feeling the annoyance buzzing back up inside of them, “What you say izz true. Itzz something I’ve been considering, but it doesn’t change the main problem I have.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t truzzt you and I hate you.” They stated bluntly.

Gabriel frowned, “Look, I didn’t poison your food, I promise.”

They made a low buzzing “hmmmmmmmmm” sound.

“Fine, look. What can I do to prove it to you? I’d really like to reach an agreement on this. It would give me immense peace of mind.”

Beelzebub thought for a long moment before reaching into their jacket pocket and producing a small wrapped object. 

“Here” They set it on the table. “Consider thizz an act of faith for proof of cooperation.”

Gabriel looked down at it, uncertain, before picking it up and twirling it in his hands. “I’m still not following.”

“Eat it.” they said simply before adding, “I promise it’zz not vile.”

“You want me to _consume_ this?” Gabriel looked genuinely shocked and made a face Beelzebub desperately wished they could commit to memory. 

“I want you to do something a little lezz angelic than you normally would.” They shrugged, “That would be enough to get me to cooperate with you in thizz.”

‘What is it?” Gabriel asked, unwrapping the object. It was about 2 inches in diameter, round, amber in color, and had something in the middle he couldn’t quite make out.

“It’zz a cockroach candy.”

He looked at it, looked at Beelzebub, and then simply said “Thank you.” before popping it in his mouth.

He starting to chew very slowly producing sharp sounds. If he weren’t an Angel, some of those sounds would likely be of cracking teeth. His face reflected this pain as he attempted to keep a rhythmic chewing pace.

“It’s... Good?” he asked. He honestly wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be good or bad.

Beelzebub looked at him in silent disbelief for a few beats before breaking out into a full fit of buzzing laughter. Gabriel just sat there, chewing, and wondered if they were going to vibrate off their chair.

Gabriel swallowed, "Is this really so funny to you?”

It took Beelzebub a moment to catch their breath.

“Maybe I can bare to deal you. Since you can prove to be mildly entertaining sometimezzz ,” they said, before looking back at Gabriel’s face and cracking up again.

He assumed this meant the meeting was as much of a success as they were going to get. “So I’ll see you again in--let’s say--100 years? You know, for a status update.”

“Sure, sure,” they wheezed, wiping a tear from their eye, “100 yearzz. Send me another memo.”

There was a pause.

“Send… you?” Gabriel pulled the paper out of his jacket and held it out for them. “Wait, you sent _me_ a memo.”

“… What?” Beelzebub took the paper and looked it over. They then pulled the memo out of their own pocket. The two papers matched.

“Thizz doesn't make sense.” they handed both papers to Gabriel who began comparing them immediately.

“Wait, if.” He looked genuinely concerned, ”This wasn’t from you? Who sent this?”

They looked at each other hoping for an answer to materialize that absolutely was not going to do so.

“Maybe," Beelzebub shrugged and grabbed the utensils to cut themselves a piece of steak. "She’zz playing gamezz again.”

“No, no,” Gabriel said with a frown, “I've said it before and I’ll say it again, God does not play games like that.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Regardless, when all was said and done, they decided to meet up again, 100 years later.


End file.
